How I got to marvel at the goodness of life tonight.

Go see the play (or read the book, come to think of it) To Kill A Mockingbird.

With one of your beautiful high school girls doing tech for it, which she loves.

And her beautiful best friend sitting next to you, there to faithfully cheer her on.

When one of your good friends decided on her own to email all the high school theater groups in the area to see if there was any way she could help, just because she loves and believes in the power of the theater.

And she has therefore spent two afternoons a week for months meeting with and loving on these students, talking with them about the Depression and racism;

for the sole purpose of helping them imagine what it would have felt like to be a young girl watching your father risk his reputation and safety in order to do what he knew was right,

helping them understand what it means that they get to enter into and share that story with others.

Marvel at said friend's beauty and passion, and at having seen that belief in the power of sharing stories and truth SO evident in her own life.

And sit in a high school auditorium between people you love,

watching beautiful teenagers doing something they love,

listening to timeless words spoken, that convey the power of human goodness in that way great literature does. 

"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing." 

"It seems that only children weep." 

"Thank you, Arthur. Thank you for my children."

"Atticus, he was real nice..." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

And maybe choke up a little bit. Because seeing people doing something they love and believe in is a powerful thing. Whether it's tech work, or theater mentoring, or defending a black man in Alabama in the 1930s.

All that made me marvel at the beauty and goodness of life tonight, and my great luck at getting to participate in it.